Sermon on John 11:32-44

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

In a culture that glorifies youth and tries to ignore death, All Saints Day is a surprising, and maybe even off-putting, holiday.

We’ve just celebrated Halloween, teased ourselves with the macabre, the eerie, and the grotesque aspects of death, but even then, we largely keep it in the realm of fantasy.

There are many cultures that take time to remember ancestors, such as the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, but on the whole, the dominant US culture doesn’t like to acknowledge death.

We’ve delegated caring for the dying to facilities. We hide our funerals in mortuaries. We spend fortunes on anti-aging serums and detox diets to keep the thought of death at bay for as long as possible.

And yet, here we are, honoring All Saints Sunday. We pause and remember those who have gone before us—those who have died this year and the whole cloud of witnesses throughout time.

And that means we must acknowledge that we, too, will one day be among the cloud of witnesses who will no longer walk this earth as we know it. We, too, will die.

Some of our discomfort with this holiday can be heard in the way we talk about it. We say “Happy Birthday,” and soon we’ll be saying “Happy Thanksgiving,” but “Happy All Saints Day” doesn’t seem quite right…

This is a somber holiday—a memory of who is no longer with us, a recognition of our grief, and an acknowledgment of our mortality.

Even our readings are bittersweet:

Our readings from Isaiah and Revelation are beautiful images of the fulfillment of the Reign of God—a feast, a holy city, tears wiped away. But none of that has come true yet. We still live in a world of pain, sorrow, and death.

And our Gospel reading records the shocking raising of Lazarus from the dead. It’s an astounding sign that takes our breath away.

But Jesus doesn’t come to every grave and command our loved ones to come out and join the living once again. We don’t get to unbind our loved ones and free them like Mary and Martha did.

We’re still at a point where resurrection is a matter of faith and not of sight.

Even at the time of our Gospel story, it was an awe-inspiring event, but it also prompted the authorities to plot to kill Jesus.

Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead, but he himself would be put to death soon after.

That doesn’t seem so much like something to celebrate.

Then and now, it can seem like death has the upper hand.

But as astounding as it was, our Gospel story isn’t just about Lazarus. The Gospel of John describes seven signs that point to God’s work in the world. From Jesus turning water into wine to raising Lazarus from the dead, it all points to who God is.

1.    Jesus turned water into wine, pointing to the abundance and joy of God’s eternal banquet.

2.    Several signs involved Jesus healing people, pointing to the healing of ourselves and the world.

3.    Jesus fed the multitudes and walked on water, pointing again to God’s eternal banquet and God’s authority over creation.

4.    Finally, Jesus raised Lazarus, pointing to Jesus’ triumph over death itself.

Because, of course, all these signs lead up to Jesus’ death and resurrection.

He himself experienced death and broke its power over us.

And as much as we still live by faith when it comes to resurrection, we do have the stories of Jesus’ defeat of death.

We do have the account of the signs in the Gospel of John, like the raising of Lazarus, leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection, which tell us what God is like: God is abundant, loving, powerful, generous, and beautiful.

And we do have the glorious depictions throughout scripture of what the fulfillment of the Reign of God will be like: a banquet without end, a peaceful city, a union with God that will dry every tear, where death will have no power.

All our ancestors in faith are cheering us on as we move through this life, putting our trust in the promises of our faithful God.

As much as this is a holiday that celebrates things our society would like to ignore, it’s a powerful holy day.

So, I will wish you a happy and a blessed and a beautiful All Saints Day.

And to mark this occasion, I invite you to share a story of someone who has gone before us.

As Lutherans, we acknowledge that we are all saints and sinners—both at the same time. No one’s perfect, so we can admit what was hard as well as what was beautiful about our relationships with our loved ones and ancestors.

If your story is about someone who was a part of this faith community, I invite you to share your story with us by writing it on one of the slips of paper or emailing it to Terri Robertson to be part of our Stories of Us project. We’re only doing it for one more week, so please send in your stories—meaningful, silly, sweet, or whatever you remember about this congregation.

If your story doesn’t involve this congregation, I would still love to hear it—feel free to call or email me or track me down in a hallway.

One way or another, please share your stories of your loved ones and ancestors. It’s how we honor their legacy and it helps us decide how we want to be remembered in the future.

As we talked about last week, practicing Sabbath helps us slow down enough to reflect. It’s hard to share stories if we have no downtime to remember and talk with one another.

Some of the best conversations happen after dinner when there’s no agenda or at a slumber party when the lights are out but no one’s ready to fall asleep yet.

It’s weird to talk about planning for unscheduled time, but it takes intention in our busy lives to make space for those timeless moments when you remember and imagine and dream with friends and family, or just daydream by yourself.

But that’s when we learn who we are, when older generations share the stories that shape the family, when we learn from the dreams of children and youth, when we connect with one another soul to soul.

It’s an important practice that we too often don’t make room for.

Sabbath helps us make room.

Sabbath helps us take the long view on not just our own lives, but the lives that came before and will come after us.

I’ve recently been introduced to the idea of “intergenerational empathy” or “seven generation thinking.”

Diane Schenandoah, a Faithkeeper of Oneida Nation, Wolf Clan of the Six Nations HaudenosauneeConfederacy, describes it like this: “We are here because of seven generation thinking. Every decision that we make today, we think of how is that going to affect seven generations ahead.”[1]

In our fast-paced world focused on convenience and instant gratification, seven generation thinking isa helpful and even novel way to view the world, even though it’s actually a deep and rich tradition.

How would our world be different if we all considered the next seven generations with every decision we made?

It would require us to slow down.

Sabbath can help with that.

And it would require us to be grounded in both past and future generations.

All Saints can help with that.

Let’s make time and space to slow down enough to tell the stories of the past and consider our impact on the future.

After all, we’re part of the grand story stretching from Creation to Jesus breaking the power of death to now to the fulfillment of the Reign of God.

This week, tell stories of the past, dream of the future, and rest in God’s promises that death has been swallowed up in victory.

[1] Long Time Academy podcast, episode 1, around 37 minutes.